00:00:00 John Daub: Good morning. Welcome to the beautiful city of Togari Nozawa Onsen. It's very famous for the onsen and the ski resort. It's a pretty affordable option compared to Hakuba and other places. Hakuba is also great too. But I thought I would take you around the town in early autumn. It's October 22nd, 23rd. And I spent the night here. It was good. It's not that far off of the Shin'etsu Trail, which is what I've been hiking and exploring over the last couple of days. And it's been a pretty interesting experience. So I'm going to take you around here. Take a look at the Japanese countryside, deep in the Japanese countryside. I think they get some tourists here, especially expats—people who are working and living here.

01:00:00 John Daub: This is a vending machine. And I'm going to put Michael Sasano's Super Chats to the test. Ponkotsu-pan is here! Oh, apple pie, you got it! Oh my goodness. Nagano is very famous for the apples as well. And they have—I passed about a dozen apple stands. So I'm going to go and get a crate of apples, as many as I can hold. And I'm going to make that apple pie. I'll send you a picture or a slice if you want. Thank you for that. This is Togari Onsen. That sign aged with sunshine. And a lot of friendly people here. You would expect that in the Japanese countryside. This area doesn't get so many tourists from international places. But it is certainly worth a visit if you're hiking, especially in the summertime. And right now, right before the autumn foliage changes.

02:40:00 John Daub: Oh, this is so nice and hot and warm.

03:08:00 John Daub: So as you all know, I was talking with the store owner there yesterday. About 15 minutes ago before I started the live stream, she asked me if I saw the Yamazaki Pan truck. If you don't know Yamazaki Pan, it is packaged baked goods that you can get in all the convenience stores and supermarkets. And yes, I did see the Yamazaki Pan truck right there. He was standing over here on the telephone, I guess, waiting for the time to start. But they delivered. She finally got her bakery stuff in there. So that was funny. Really nice people. Easy to talk to. The place that I stayed at was very famous for soba noodles. And actually, Nagano in general is very famous for soba noodles.

04:01:00 John Daub: Let me show you where I am on the map here. I'll walk around a little bit. It's good to put this in perspective, to figure out exactly where I am. You can see on the map, Tokyo is right there. And I'm in the mountains, almost close to the Sea of Japan. Wow, I didn't realize how deep I was. Not that far from Joetsu. But Nozawa Onsen is in a kind of a valley, I guess you'd call it. I think that's the Nakatsu River? I'm not sure which river it is, to be honest with you. But a lot of rice, a lot of apple trees, a lot of delicious foods. There's a kaki tree (persimmon) right next to me. The manhole covers say Togari on it. Very cool. There's been a lot of bear attacks. If you have any questions about it directly, you can let me know. But I do have bear spray in my bag, just in case.

05:01:00 John Daub: This is where I stayed last night. It was really nice. It's a simple place. The smell of the tatami reminded me of the first apartments that I had in Japan. I opened the door and the smell of the new tatami hit me. And it was a really nice smell. Very famous for its soba. But it's not just a soba place. It's like a hotel. So you can stay at the soba place. So I said, well, I gotta do that. So I filmed them making the soba this morning. And I filmed eating the soba last night for dinner. Because that's what you get when you stay here. And that was a really good experience. They had tempura—really good tempura from local vegetables. The sansai (mountain vegetables) that the bears also eat. We're in competition for the sansai. But they made some good tempura sansai.

06:00:00 John Daub: Okay, I do have a picture of it here. This is for the main channel video. You can see these are hand-cut, homemade soba noodles from Nagano, from here. Iiyama City is the name of the Shinkansen stop in the city. And you take the negi (green onion) and the wasabi and you put in that tsuyu (dipping sauce). So, so good. I was filming myself. So I had a light on me. And I was making sure not to film other customers. That trail beat me up the day before yesterday and yesterday. I was really tired. It was a long freaking day. This is before I got into the bath too. I still feel a little tired to be honest with you.

07:11:00 John Daub: But I was blessed yesterday with this sunset. Check it out. Here's the view from my window. There's a kaki tree you can see right there—that's a persimmon. And then I had this sunset. Look at the colors. Just so beautiful. You have to catch it at the right time. It goes away so quickly. But the sky turned such a beautiful purple. It was really nice. And that's how I knew today was going to be a nice day. The fog is starting to burn off, which is a very good sign. And certainly better than yesterday. If you didn't see that live stream yesterday, please go check it out. I found a severed head on a pole. This is the stuff that Dracula used to do in Romania in Brasov or in Bran, in the city of Bran, near Brasov.

08:22:00 John Daub: So just to put up the shot. There's a couple of restaurants in this area. But the main port of call is Iiyama Station—I-I-Y-A-M-A. It's on the Shinkansen line. It's a brand new station. It's really nice. I went there yesterday and filmed a bit. We're going to walk this way. And then I'm going to go to the car. Because I want to show you from the town that I'm in. You basically are going into the middle of nothingness. We've had so much rain over the last 72 hours. And everything was wet for the last 72 hours. It's just starting to dry out because it's just sun up there. So it's actually sunny with blue skies. But we're in the fog right now. It's a peaceful look of the Japanese countryside. Live. And with me not talking and breaking the tranquility. You can see down there there's running water. It just flows throughout the entire city. Here's the manhole cover. Togari. I guess that's the mascot. He's got a snow cap on because it's famous for the ski resort. Togari in a very 1980s-like font. Pretty cool. This is the first time I've seen the blue sky in a long time. Finally. Thank goodness.

10:17:00 John Daub: I'm going to go to Lake Nozomi and film a little bit more of the trail. And then I drive home around 1 p.m. And maybe I get home by 4. Leo's got his first class trip from kindergarten. I thought that was really cool. So I want to be home when he gets home. I want to hear all the stories of his class trip—like taking a bus without mommy and daddy. It's crazy. He's going to be okay. This is for Ben and Michael and all the wonderful Super Chats. Can of hot coffee, which is cooling off real fast. That's good coffee. Countryside—you're not going to find a 7-Eleven. Well, actually, I think there's a 7-Eleven down the street. I like the fresh ground coffee. You can taste the difference. But I also like stores like this. The mom and pop shops that have been here for generations. It looks like it's from the Showa era. Maybe the 1960s or 70s. It's been renovated once probably. And very nice lady in there.

12:23:00 John Daub: I parked my car down there. We're going to go towards there. Apparently, there's another restaurant. You can hear flowing water everywhere. Oh, this is the view from my room. My room is here. The second floor is my room. I did have a balcony. That one with the open curtains, I think. There's a kaki tree. The one thing I think you need to know, when you are out in the countryside, don't pick the fruit from the trees. Don't do it. It's not yours. It's actually a crime. Fruit theft. Here's one that's fallen. So, I can kind of pick it up, I guess. Oh, there's a slug on it. Sorry, buddy. Oh, I'm sorry. I dropped it on you. I'm really sorry. Are you okay? He's gone. Sorry. Yeah, that's persimmon. Just don't go to my coffee, bro. Oh, it smells like slug. Slug with my coffee. I guess that's why they call it a slug because you make a face as though you were slugged when you smell it. Or it could be just the rotting kaki I smell. But the tree's beautiful, isn't it? You see a bunch of these trees all over.

15:17:00 John Daub: See, these are adventures you get only when you go to places where no one else goes. This is another reason to get off the beaten path. Shishibebue. Sounds like a foreign name. It's written in katakana. So oh boy, they're having some fun.

16:35:00 John Daub: It's a nice day. So I'm going to go to the lake. I don't know if I'm going to do another live stream there. I'm going to be focusing on the main channel episode. I have about four hours to get everything done but everything in this area is relatively close. Going from Iiyama Station to Katakuri no Sato, the lodge I was at—that's an hour drive and that's going pretty much across from north to the south part of the trail. But if you follow the line around it it takes 10 days. How many citizens live in Togari? I know that Togari is 33 kilometers away from Nagano City and I think it's probably a couple thousand. I don't think it's that big—maybe a few thousand. The fog is burning off fast. There's a slight chill in the air but I've got on a fleece vest, a hiking long sleeve shirt so it's breathable and then I have a sweatshirt on and I feel great. It's a little bit of the cool hit my skin, but my hands are a little chilled. Coffee's nice. That's what you would wear for this time of year.

17:47:00 John Daub: This area was warmer than Tokyo. Tokyo had a cold spell go through there. You could see there's the ski lift. It's 43 degrees in Wisconsin right now. Whoa. I'm really sorry about Luke Fickle and the Badgers. It's just a tough season. A lot of respect for the Badgers. They always find a way to fight pretty hard there, but it's a tough year. Except if you're a Hoosier. We have a lot of viewers from Indiana. They all know I went to Ohio State, and a lot of them are letting me know, hey, how about the Hoosiers? But everybody who went to IU, they're the nicest people in the world, whereas I think Ohio State fans might be a little bit rowdy. Everyone from IU has been really nice. College football rivalries. But if you're from the state of Michigan, that's a different story. It's all in the showdown in November.

19:12:00 John Daub: It's a good place to stay. I really like the soba noodles. If you do come to Nagano, that's one of the things that you must get, as well as apple pie, which you might have to make yourself, but there are some places that have it. I saw that at Iiyama Station, they had apple mochi. I have a Patreon site, and I send packages to daimyo supporters on there that help support the channel. Do you think I should send some apple mochi in the box? I could pick it up at the station. Let me know on Patreon, and also, some of these might make a good postcard for the Patreon postcard club. I have some amazing views. But I'm hoping I can get some good drone shots before I drive back to Echigo-Yuzawa Station.

20:20:00 John Daub: Actually, it's J.K.O. Adventures. I think it's apple puree mixed in with the mochi because it wasn't a white color—it was like a translucent color. They have the yokan mochi which makes the mochi green? I think they put apple puree in the mochi and mixed it in. But I'm putting this in the daimyo package for sure. These are so good but I gotta wash my hands cuz I inadvertently touched a slug. These are ringo karintou (apple karintou). They're so good—they're crispy, sweetened but they put an apple puree in it and they're addictive as heck. I'm telling you these are so good so I bought a pack. Went back in there and then I bought like 30 of them—they're coming home with me. So I tried to do that for the packages but I can't send more than 30. Nagano is great because this is like one of the produce kingdoms of Japan. These valleys are lined along the river and there seems to be a few rivers here as well as lakes like Lake Biwa and there's Lake Nozomi up there and there's other lakes that have apples and peaches and kabocha and stuff.

22:44:00 John Daub: I'm gonna drive around Kyushu next month and I'm super excited. Kyushu is awesome because they have those volcanoes. Driving around Mount Aso was awesome and the area between Miyazaki and Kirishima, area between Miyazaki and Kagoshima is really stunning and the south part of Kagoshima was really nice to drive. Nagasaki is also a cool city to drive around into—you kind of drive into Nagasaki through a tunnel and then boom you're in the city of Nagasaki. I thought that was really cool. A lot of good driving in Kyushu. The onsen water is great. The soba shop that I stayed at last night had an onsen and I dipped in it this morning and I dipped in it last night. It was a pretty good experience. This episode's on the Shin'etsu Trail—99.9% of tourists don't come here. They get international tourists like 5,000 in this area—it's not a lot. A lot of tourists will go to Nagano City and go to the snow monkeys but they don't come to this part, which is the Niigata-Nagano border, Togari Onsen, Nozawa Onsen.

24:20:00 John Daub: I was yesterday live streaming in the villages. They get very few international tourists, but they do get some, because I met two people from Australia that were backpacking, that were hiking along the Shin'etsu Trail, which I did yesterday. And I didn't see any bears, but I saw a mountain goat. And I saw that bird that Nagano is famous for that doesn't fly. It was scurrying between the bushes. I saw it. And my guide, Suzuki-san, he goes, so what? Suzuki-san couldn't see anything. I was looking, I was finding mushrooms left and right, and Suzuki-san couldn't find anything. He's stepping on the mushrooms. I said, you stepped on a mushroom. He goes, oh. I was like, oh, well, okay, it'll grow back.

25:06:00 John Daub: On the Patreon I always share for everyone who gives a dollar—advance notice of the live streams. So I put in here, Togari Nagano! Exclamation point. And if you put in an exclamation point, you know it's going to be an exciting live stream, right? Thanks for being here, guys. I appreciate it. I like taking you outside of the city of Tokyo and showing you something new. This is something new. If you have any questions about Togari, you can ask and I'll try to answer. But I'm learning about this town just like you. And I'll head to Lake Nozomi now and film some stuff. But the autumn colors are already starting to change up on the mountain. Actually, I think that probably in about five days, the autumn foliage will start to change up at elevation. And then it's going to come down here. Probably around November 10th. So there you go. That's a live update. This part of Nagano is going to be all beautiful by November 10th. I might come back here. How could I not come back here for the foliage?

26:32:00 John Daub: All right, guys. I'm going to drive around. I'll see you in another live stream. Probably tomorrow from Tokyo. What do you want to see in Tokyo? I think I've shown it all. Should I talk about some scandal that's happening on YouTube? Let me know what you want to talk about, where you want to go. And I will try to do it. I think we need to do some more food. I'll see what I can do. Hey, Michael. See you guys.